"Vatopedi Monastery Case"

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The Vatopedi Monastery case concerns a series of exchanges of real estate, land and land, between the Greek State and the Vatopedio Monastery of Mount Athos (which is NPTD), with the alleged (in category) ultimate purpose to reach certain offshore companies through the monastery. On 21 March 2017, following a decision of the Chamber of Appeals, the 14 involved civil servants or private non-political persons were acquitted. In favour of the acquittal of the defendants the prosecutor of the Royal Krishna seat, who had proposed that they be exempt from any charge.

Especially for the monks the prosecutor had said that they did not consider committing any criminal act after believing that Lake Vistonida belonged to the monastery, while for all the accused the prosecutor had stressed that "it did not result from the long process nor did it commit any criminal act such as infidelity, fraud, perjury, laundering of black money."

With regard to state employees he had said that they considered that they were actually carrying out government decisions and "they were therefore convinced that they were carrying out legal actions."

Investigation
The investigation of this case began after the show revealed the scandal Pandora's box, by journalist Kostas Vaxevanis. Message reports and testimonies of John Daska (journalist) and Lieutenant General e.a. Ioannis Sergianni followed. Then there was a petition – a complaint by the chairman of the parliamentary group of LAOS, George Karatzaferis, at a session of the House, against former Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis, former prosecutor of the Supreme Court George Sanidas as well as against all other officials. A copy of it was also submitted to the Commission (2010) by Member Athanasios Plearis, Member of the Commission.

The case was then investigated by three Parliamentary committees of inquiry, in 2008, 2010 and early 2011, the latter which was pre-interrogation, followed by an investigation by the Economic Crime Investigation Corps, the Supreme Court prosecutor George Sanidas, the Bank of Greece, the Capital Market Commission etc.

First Committee of Inquiry (2008)
On November 4, 2008, following the unanimous decision of the House of Commons on 22 October 2008, a House of Inquiry was formed to investigate "the whole case of Vatopedi Monastery" and to seek any political responsibilities. Prime Minister of Chania with the New Democracy Christos Markogiannakis. This committee met from 30 October to 15 December at 47 meetings, with a total of 250 hours of work and the minutes reached 13,000 pages and after 122 witnesses were examined.

According to the findings of the Committee, "Port 15 December 2008", as submitted, political responsibilities were recognised, defined only as "supervisory deficiencies" involved